I decided to create more experimentational photographs using Adobe Photoshop.

Experiment 1

I wanted to create another montage style photo, I did this using the polygonal lasso tool to select the second level of the building in the image, and then copied and pasted the new layer, and so on.

I then decided I wanted to make the image much bigger on a much bigger canvas. I did this using the crop tool to make the canvas bigger, after that I used copy and paste to create the final image.

I then put the image into Adobe Lightroom and touched it up using the exposure, contrast and other lighting settings as I believe it looked a bit too dull.

Experiment 2

I wanted to create a double exposure type image on photoshop. I started by copying the layer and flipping it horizontally. I then cut half of the second layer off and rearranged it next to the original layer.

I then used the spot healing brush to fix the line down the middle where it looks slightly off where the 2 layers connect.

I then cropped the left side of the image to make both sides look even to create the final image.

For this part of my project, I wanted to experiment presenting my images in a different form to a zine or mounting my images. Firstly I cut out 3 segments of structures I have photographed after sticking the images onto foam board. I used a sharp knife to carefully and smoothly cut out these segments without encountering any rough edges or cutting mistakes. To begin with the experimentation I laid out my three cut outs in a basic sequence to see how it would look.

Foam board layouts

I did around 20 different positions for these cut outs to experiment which format I can present as my final arrangement. I started with a simple shuffle of the images to experiment which format is most effective.

I think most of these layout experiments are really effective and don’t look unorganised. I believe they all create a assembled sequence with no flaws. Every experiment was done by placing these foam board cut outs onto a bigger piece of foam board and created a 3 dimensional effect and added some depth. My favourite layout from these experiments in Experiment #5 because of how the order of the images create what almost looks like a whole new buildings. Also, I like how their are no rough corners or edges due to all cut outs linking up.

3d sculpture experimentation

After seeing how these experiments looked I wanted to create a 3d sculpture that stands high looking like a unique whole building. To create these sculptures I used a straight piece of wire to connect the cut outs together by placing them on top of one another to form an effective layout. However I didn’t do too much experimentation for this area as after around 3 attempts I found a good and effective layout for my sculpture.

As I stated, I only did 3 experiments until I found the effective layout and stance in which my sculpture stands. My favourite sculpture is Experiment #3 as I really like how all the buildings link up near perfectly creating an almost new structure.

Letha Wilson

Letha Wilson is an American artist working in photography and sculpture making who often combines large-scale landscape photographs with sculptural elements of metal and concrete, challenging the two-dimensional nature of traditional photography. I have chosen to include Letha in my post as she has slightly similar work to my 3d sculptures I have created using foam board and cut outs. Her work is much more advanced and unique compared to mine by not only focusing on the topic of architecture but many outdoor images. Her and Felicity Hammond have inspired me to experiment with these sculptures as they are the most unique artists for sculptures as such.

Final sculpture experimentation

Evaluation:

Overall, I am extremely pleased with these experiments as it gives me many new ideas with how I would like to present my work instead of through mounting and digital forms. I used 3 different images of buildings to create one main structure which links together well with no rough edges. I could’ve improved these sculptures by experimenting more with the 3d creations by trying out different layouts. Also, I could’ve made more cut outs on the foam board to further expand the sculpture by introducing new features. The three images I used I selected as final prints that I have mounted and stuck onto foam board so I can present them in another form.

Narrative

• Three words

friendship, teenagers, girls

• A sentence

following along with four girls as they explore themselves while living on a small island

• A paragraph

During your teenage years, friendship is one of the most import things in you life, this is to show you how four girls rely and support each other as well as having fun driving around and exploring their small island. You will see how they explore themselves through portraiture as well spending time together before they all start new chapters in their lives by moving to university.

Design

Paper and ink

I will be using white paper behind my images in my photobook as well as black ink for the title and quotes on the inside. I have chosen to stay with white as I think that is a neutral colour helps to accentuate my images as most of them either have a lot of colour or are in black and white. By using a white background the colour images tend to look brighter making them standout against the darker black and white photographs that will be presented in my book.

Format, size and orientation, binding and cover

For the size and format of my photo book I will have a soft cover as I think that will be fitting for my style of book, I will also have the front cover be matte as I want to add a different type of texture instead of the classic shiny cover. I also think that the matte cover will look better with my front cover where I have a yellow background which I have chosen due to that colour being the colour for friendship as well as having one of my final images layered over the top with the opacity turned down so that you can still see the yellow peaking through.

Title 

I struggled when picking out my title as I could not find one that was fitting for my photo book, I first wanted to experiment with names including the word YELLOW as I thought that it would fit best with the concept. For example, YELLOW HEARTS. After I looked up the meaning which is the opposite to what the book is about I moved on to thinking about my friends, the title I was experimenting with was DIRTY BLONDES as their in one blonde and three brunets but I felt that this really only focused on one person where I wanted everyone to be included. Next I was thinking about doing something simple like a number or letter so I started off with 18 which developed into ALMOST 18 as three of us are 18 but we are still waiting on one. The age 18 is very important, we are starting new chapters in our lives and everything will be changing so I wanted to have a title that represented that.

Editing and sequencing

For my images I will be using a mix of coloured and black and white images which will all have similar editing techniques used so that my photobook looks cohesive. In my book I want sections that are dedicated to one person with a mix of group photos included. I will start off with a black and white portrait and there responses to the questionnaire, this will lead into different compositions of images of the induvial and finish with group images, I will then start a new persons section.

Images and text

In my photobook I will use a small amount of text, but I will be add a singular quote from each person next to another portrait. I think that by adding a quote which they picked out themselves and that they like will allow for the viewers to get to know each person more. By adding text will also help break up the images so that they don’t seem like they are to squashed together in the book.

Layout

In my photobook I have been experimenting with different image layouts, I have a range of layouts presented in my photobook as I wanted variety to keep the book interesting and not repetitive.

To keep the book from looking cramped I have left blank space around some images as well as leaving while white pages to help break apart the colours and shades which can get overwhelming. I like the contrast between the black and white and coloured images in the first layout as it is of the same two subjects but completely different compositions.

for my third and final shoot i wanted to make sure i had more than enough images to finish my project with for this shoot i took around 200 images still around St Helier but again a different route with slightly brighter lighting

to pick out the ones i liked most i used the pick and reject tool again and came up with 80 images i liked the most

after further narrowing them down with the star rating tool i came up with 40 i wanted to use

for this project i experimented with a mix of colour editing and monochrome editing to add to my final projects after some experimenting i came up with 5 of the best ones

for the colour image i decided to all a bit of vibrancy and changing exposure to create a more catching image

i was happy with how this image turn’t out because first time i seen it i almost didn’t even flag it but after some editing i liked it much more

for the monochrome images i used similar edits to photoshoot 2 so that i could make a sequence using them all

i liked how they all turn’t out but my favourite out of the the monochrome edits from this shoot is this one as i like the strong contrast

overall i was very happy with this shoot as it gave me much more final images and allowed me to have to final projects one being black and white and the other in colour i was glad i got as many photos as i did for this shoot as was very useful for me to get more final images

This piece was influenced by the work of Matthew Venot, as I was inspired by the bold distinction between the subjects he photographed in contrast with the bright blue sky in the background which is a common theme in his work.

I used these 2 as my final selections from the Venot inspired shoots as they perfectly capture the striking contrast between a simple, boxy flat block and a clear (ish) sky.

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I started the framing process digitally at first as I wanted to play with different layouts before finalising it physically.

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This is the second layout I tried which I preferred, however I felt like it was missing something as the rest of my project mainly consists of pattern(s) + repetition .

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For the final layout I rotated the bottom image to add slight disparity & make it a bit more abstract.

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for my second photo shoot i took a different bus but still took photos around town as it where i felt was most interesting the lighting wasn’t the best on this day and feel it affected the photos so they didn’t turn out as well as my other shoots but still had some i liked

for this photo shoot i captured about a hundred photos again so i used the pick and reject system again coming up with 45 images i liked the most

i then narrowed them down again using the star rating to find my favourites from the shoot and which ones were worth editing

i decided on which ones would work well in a sequence using the the colour filtering and came out with 2 prints

for this shoot i decided to try the final images in black and white to give some differentiation in my final pieces

overall i was pretty happy with how this photoshoot turn’t out and was happy with my final images i think me changing to monochrome really helped these images stand out and will do the same to some of my images from my final photoshoot and try to go during a better time of day for lighting

Aims for my photobook: I wanted to create my most successful book yet, using Lightroom I created a softcover, small square photobook layout, using premium lustre paper. This was because I wanted the pages to be of a smooth texture and high quality imagery. I decided the shape of this photobook should be square as a lot of my images are landscape and some are not of the highest quality so I thought a smaller book would be a smarter decision as it will less apparent that the images may be fuzzy in some areas. Furthermore, the most important part of this book is communication the idea that these are not just randomly selected images, they are placed in this order to attempt to tell a story.

Above is my front and back cover, I thought that having these are monochromatic images and having my book filled with life and colour would be interesting for the reader, and they would be intrigued by this feature. I really like these images appear as if the tree branches are linked together despite being different images.

I have selected this as my title as this is the name of the main road that connect from my mums to my dads house, and this is where me and my brother spend a lot of our childhood as we used to walk from my mum’s house in St Helier to my dad’s house near Green Island in St Clement (Photoshoot 2). ‘Fountain Lane’ contains memories from my childhood as we used to spend lot of time feeding a house and finding chickens in this area. I like how this title is a physical and mental reflection of memories, and this title was my best outcome as it links to my brother life too, and this book is a reflection of how our relationship has grown in the last year.

This image on the right was taken by accident, however, I think that it ended up being a really successful and natural images. Additionally, it links in well with the photograph of my bedroom on the left, as it’s taken in the same location, so the background and lighting is the same throughout both images. I think these pages are some of my most successful and this is simply because they link with each other so well, they lack contrast, however I wanted to start out will warmer toned and more subtle images as these are located at the beginning of my photobook.

For this slide above to be successful, I have to leave the white space on the right, meaning that my dogs eye is not in the middle of the page, and when my book is printed you will be able to see his eye rather then it being lost in the middle of the page. I really like the atmosphere behind this picture, as my brother looks very happy and my looks scary which adds quite a funny affect. For this photoshoot (Photoshoot 1) I decided that the most successful photographs would be taken in my house, as this is a familiar and happy environment to take images in.

The thought process behind this spread was linking the path to my dads house to a significant figure that is within my mums house, and thought my dog was the best type of figure for this idea as he is a big part of our lives and loves doing on walks down Fountain Lane, giving another link to the name of my photobook. Throughout my book, all of the portrait images with a white background are all placed into the book with the same template in Lightroom, meaning that all these portraits images appear the same size when doing through my book, this is so that all of my book appear cohesive.

This images meaning placed together was in an attempt to show that my brother was walking to the beach, which is next to my dads house and a huge symbol of our childhood, as we spend all of our summers with our dad at the beach. I think this is successful as the first image is filled with one focal point and a lot of texture throughout the background, whilst the second image has a lack of texture and not really one focal point, this was in an attempt to create subtle contrast throughout the pages.

This image of the tree was one of my final images from my second photoshoot, this meant that I wanted it to be recognised more in my photobook as it is one of my higher quality images. To contradict the intricacy of the tree body, branches and leaves, I have placed a blank page next to it, this is so this image receives more attention as it is one of my most successful prints.

There is some red present in my dogs toy, and also within the brushes throughout the image on the right. the blue sky also contrasts with the orange like tone in my dogs fur. Additionally, the image of my dog is very dull and the image of the road is filled with lots more colour and vibrancy, meaning that these pages link well together. Also, I think its aesthetically pleasing that my dog is looking to the right, and this next image is on the right, meaning that I am attempting to give some direction to the flow of my photobook.

In my opinion, this double page spread is the most successful from my photobook, this is because this was originally quite a large image, so when placed into a landscape format, only some sky was lost, this means that I could make my brother the focal point of this double page, with his body not being exactly in the middle only means when the book is printed, he will not be folded and will still be visible when looking through the book.

For the pages above, I thought that the natural blue sky background would link them together well, after some experimentation with the image on the left, I thought it would be more successful if it was kept in a portrait format, as the original photograph was portrait too, also I really like how the quality of these two images is high.

The flowers which are placed on the right hand side page, and ones that are placed inside, where the next pink and white flowers which are below are always outside, this is create a contradiction between inside and outside nature and how different they can appear, also both of these photographs were taken inside me house, and the next ones below are on the way to my dad’s house, creating the story.

My most successful image from my second photoshoot is the one of the flowers above, this is why I have bled this image to the outside of the page, as I believe that it should have the biggest space as it did not look good as a double page spread as the image was too zoomed in and appeared more pixelated then in its normal format.

Analysis of my photobook: I thought that my photobook was very successful, compared to my previous photobook, it took me a lot less time and was of higher quality at the end. In my opinion, I told the storyline somewhat well, as my book could of been a lot better if I had another photoshoot, or simply more original images to work from, as my photoshoots were taken during the evening, the light was continuously changing, and this meant the lighting and quality of some of images was unsuccessful, limiting the amount of raw images I could of used throughout my photobook, Alternatively, creating a smaller photobook was a lot more effective for me and it meant that I had more time to do editing. The overall layout of my photobook is good in my opinion, and creating this was the best option for me as I could showcase my best images in an effective way.

The last step was to send my book to Blurb after creating it in Lightroom, after paying for the book their is an option to buy a PDF version, I didn’t end up paying for this. There was another feature which involved getting a preview of my book which allowed me to see my photobook in its digital form. This shows a version of the book where you can flick throughout all of the pages.

To present my final prints in a different form than foam board and window mounting I want to create another photo-zine as I think it is an effective way to present my images. I created a photo-zine for My Rock project to present my images from our La Hocq trip. Previously, I created my zine on Adobe InDesign so I am going to do the same but make sure I make these much needed improvements. Most of my final prints will be displayed in this zine perhaps in a monochrome format as well as other images I took in preparation for this project. Not all my images involved will be presented as my final images but only a small selection of 7-10 that I am going to mount. I am aiming to have around 14-18 pages in my zine to include all my best shots of architecture.

Front and Back Cover

Photo zine creation

To begin with the construction of my photo-zine I needed to create a document following the correct measurements and pages in order to craft a good quality zine. I then had to decide if I wanted to keep a monochrome theme throughout the whole zine which I think would look the best. I wanted to keep the front and back cover in colour to attract viewers with the bright blue sky. I chose this front cover because it gives a brief idea of what images will be involved in this zine, the idea of Simple vs Complex architectural structures.

For my first 4 pages I wanted to present my images from the finance district located near the Esplanade as I think they are my most eye catching images in the zine.

Next, I wanted to introduce my first double page spread of one image which is also photographed at the finance district of the same buildings displayed above.

Then I wanted to present my images from the Waterfront apartment complex, carrying on the theme of monochrome images to make the zine more organised.

After thinking about which location I wanted to present next I decided to use images from all locations again carrying on the black and white images.

Evaluation

Overall, I am happy with my zine but could’ve been heavily improved if I decided to start the creation much earlier in the exam, however I do like how all my images are in black and white as it follows the style of Helene Binet who is one of my chosen artists. I tried to connect the images together by almost making it seem as if two images create one structure such as on page 13. I could of improved this zine by including more close up shots of unique features of the buildings I have photographed. I included one image from my Fort Regent photoshoot to try and mix up the style of images with the photo on page 14 being a structure which is much more simple compared to the rest. I did experiment with only using images from the Waterfront but I believe I did not get enough quality photos for them to be included. I was thinking about creating a photobook instead of a zine however it wouldn’t of been worth making due to a lack of effective images.

Robert F. Kennedy’s Funeral Train:

Paul Fusco travelled the world as a photojournalist. But his most indelible images, portraying a nation in mourning, were captured on a single day in 1968 as he rode aboard Robert F Kennedy’s funeral train from New York to Washington.

He died on 15 July at an assisted-living facility in San Anselmo, California. He was 89. He had complications from dementia, said his son, Anthony Fusco.

During the heart of his career, Fusco was a staff photographer for Look, which in the 1960s was Life magazine’s chief competitor. Both magazines had circulations of several million each and were known for their exceptional photography.

After joining Look in 1957, Fusco worked across Europe and Asia, and from Egypt to Mexico to Brazil. Drawn particularly to the downtrodden, he photographed Kentucky coal miners, homeless people in New York, migrant farmworkers in California and rural poverty in the south.

“I want to take pictures of people that, when you see them, you can feel their lives,” he told the Record newspaper of Bergen County, New Jersey, in 2005.

As the train emerged from a tunnel under the Hudson River and entered New Jersey, Fusco saw what would become his most memorable and poignant subject: ordinary citizens alongside the railroad tracks, bearing witness and sharing grief.

“I was astounded by the people,” Fusco told the Palm Beach Post in 2010. “I just reflexively jumped up, went to the window and pulled down the top pane. And I just stood in that window for eight hours and shot film. I was overwhelmed by the constant stream of people and the variety and mixture and visible pain and loss.”

For my project I took some inspiration from Michelle Sank and her ‘Sixteen’ collection where she had UK teenagers from Cornwall answer questions about their lives and how it feels to be 16 as well as growing up in poverty and isolation from big cities. I thought it was very impact full how she would connect a portrait of each teenager with their answer showing viewers the diversity in their small town. I liked that you were able to get a deeper insight into the teens lives just by their answers not matter how short or how detailed their made them. I wanted to do something similar in my photo book so that it would help viewers get a greater understanding of each subject and their lives.

Questions

For this part of my project I came up with seven questions which ranged from being quite generic to more specific questions that have meaning to me and my friends. I wanted to have a wide variety of questions which gave a lot of detail to help tell a story of what it is like growing up in Jersey as a teenage girl as well as how important friendships are as they become people that were most comfortable around.

One of the questions in this questionnaire is catered more for my friend group specifically, it I the second to last, it may seem strange that I have asked what they do on a random day in the week but to us this is a specific day where we all try and meet up. Depending on the week sometime there only be 4 people but there can also be the whole group, it is a day where we make time to spend together which I think is very important especially for teenagers at stressful times.

Responses

As I wanted a more personal feel to my project, I got myself and my friends to had write our responses. I also wanted to show the difference between how each of us write which I think gives a deeper meaning to the answers and overall concept. I think the way people layout their answers on paper and their handwriting can tell you a lot about their mind. For example, my friend on lefts responses are shot and straight to the point as well as being simple and some could say that they look sweet with the little hearts draw on the side where as my friend on the right has a louder personality which I think can be shown through her responses and the way she has laid out her answers.

Photobook Layout

I have decided to use this layout in my photo book as I want viewers to be able to see the person and what they look like as well as their answers before they see any other images which I have taken. I wanted to keep all these portraits in black and white so that it can be shown for when a new persons section is being shown in the book. I think this was a very successful part of my project as viewers are now able to get a deeper insight into each of the subjects lives as well as their thoughts of certain matters.